WW2 Trilingual Arimail Handstamp

I thought that I posted this yesterday but cannot see it anywhere. Sorry if it is duplicate.

I have just aquired this cover from the Canadian POW Camp 23.

Does anyone know where the purple trilingual BY AIR MAIL/ PAR AVION / LUFTPOST hand stamp would have been applied.

I have not seen this before

AQ

That looks familiar to me as possibly also a postwar (and maybe prewar) mark on mail. Just guessing, this could be a private handstamp used by the sender, if he was a pre-war merchant or somesuch sending a lot of mail to Germany.

Interesting item, and by air besides.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I should have said that on the back of the letter the sender describes himself as a merchant seaman so it would be unlikley, although not entirely impossible, that he owned this mark. There are no postal or censor markings on the back so I did not include a scan..

AQ

That puts it back to being something postal from the camp or where mail to Germany was handled in Canada during the war. But if creaky memory serves to recognize the design, it is a "standard" rubberstamp that was available commercially.

I assume you have a readable sender name because this is a formula card/letter. Might be interesting to trace what ship he came from. Also, I found that camp 23 (Monteith, Ont.) mostly included Jewish German nationals and others who had fled Nazi Germany. Not much vetting done by the government; horrible.

Found this blurb somewhere. At least you now know it originated in Alberta


1945 JY24 POW / 133 CDS (Lethbridge Camp Alta) type M16-23 on POW mail
lettersheet Form 1.0 17 / M.F.M. 316 / 650M-10-44 (5691-2-53
33) / H.Q. 1772-39-2054 /
K.P. 18372.

That would be very interesting.

This is a scan from he back of the card.



I am not totally sure of the senders name Walter then ??Kinse?? I cannot really make out the surname. His POW number 13305 should be a good lead but from the UK I have not been able to find any online sources with this info.

These POW form cards / letters are not uncommom, I have a few, and have only been able to ID a few senders, A couple of luftwaffe crew from the battle of Britain and one I am almost centain is from one of the 115 people who survived the sinking of the Bismarck but I would like to be 100% sure about that. I know the Bismarck survivors were transfered to Canada about 6 months after the sinking but have not been able to trace from any documents to which camops hey were sent.

AQ

I agree it's Kinse (EDIT: see correct answer below). Nice research on the others mentioned.

stallzer, this is not from Alberta. If you carefully read what you found from "somewhere", you might realize the first part is a postmark description with the number 133, which is Lethbridge. If you look at the photo in the OP, the number is 23. The lettersheet form/card with that printed number was used probably throughout the POW camp system. Not helping.

Sorry, got caught up on the HQ number. POW camp 23 is / was Monteith, Iroquois falls Ontario.

I think it is "Walter Hinze", which is also a common name in German, in opposite to Kinse or Kinze or Hinse.

According to one of my Bailey & Toop reference books, this camp opened on July 16, 1940 and closed on December (day unlnown), 1946. It was a barracks type of camp with a capacity of 4000 internees. Regarding the tri-lingual marking, this is the first time I have seen it.

Hope this helps?

Chimo

Bujutsu

Camp 23 closed in December 1946 see
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/disco...amps.aspx#c9

There the camp is described as a Transfer centre for various internees, PoWs and civilians

I have seen records that the camp held only 1800 prisoners
http://www.windsor-communities.com/...ian-list.php

I have also seen the 4,000 figure but feel that 1800 is more realastic. I have a couple of letters that show one prisoner was there for at least 27 months so I am not sure about the transfer centre designation.

AQ

Sounds much more likely, thanks.

AQ